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The Sinking of the Titanic
The RMS Titanic. One of the best known Olympic-Class Ocean liners of the early 20th Century. To some, it was a luxury ship, others saw it as a way to put their past lives behind. But as we all know, the Titanic was involved in its sinking incident. There have been a lot of Ocean Liners that have sunk during peacetime, but the Titanic's was so iconic, it seemed like it was the only one, and still to this day it is considered one of the worst maritime tragedies in the history of the world. But how did it happen, what was the Titanic even like? This is what this page will try to cover. The Titanic For this, we need to go to the Emerald Isle of Ireland and the port town of Belfast. The RMS Titanic began building in 1909 in the now-famous Harland and Wolff Ship Yard in the small Irish town of Belfast. ''It was owned by the Oceanliner Company called ''White Star Line and was the second of 3 Olympic-Class Oceanliners build by the company. Construction was completed in early 1912. The Titanic was considered at the time the biggest Cruise Ship in the world. With a height of nearly 200 feet, a length of nearly 900 feet, and a displacement of over 50,000 Tons. It can also cruise at speeds of nearly 25 MPH, and had a power source consisting of 30 different engines which altogether can produce up to 46,000 Horse Power. It can also carry up to 3,000 people (2,400 Passengers and 800 Crewmen). During its construction, it also had something that was considered for the time "revolutionary" the ship's hull had around 15-20 "water-tight" compartments. So, in the event of the hull getting damage while at sea, these compartments can seal the water, so if several compartments were flooded, the ship can still stay afloat. With this, the Titanic developed a reputation of being "Unsinkable". That reputation would soon be put to the test. The Ship was *huge* as it had a lot of luxuries and rooms. They consisted of a Gymnasium (pictured top left) a Ball with a Grand Staircase which allowed easy access from the lower deck to the upper deck (pictured top right) a swimming pool filled with seawater since water filtration on a cruise ship didn't exist by the early 20th century (pictured bottom left). It also had a Barber Shop, a Dining Room, a Smoking Lounge, a Reading Lounge, an ever luxurious Turkish Bath, and a bit of a quirky thing called a Squash Court. Even the staterooms on the Titanic were.......cosmopolitan the luxury level of some of the staterooms is so high that the middle-class staterooms can be compared to high-class staterooms on any other cruise ship. The Titanic wasn't just a "Luxury Ship exclusively for the rich", the more fortunate middle-class people can also afford the Titanic, the poor were also known to hitch a ride on the ship as they want to immigrate to the USA looking for a better life there. The Disaster On April 10, 1912, the Titanic was docked in a British Town called Southampton to load it's expected passengers. The man who was put in charge of the Titanic's Maiden Voyage was Captain Edward Smith who works for White Star Line. The Titanic sailed to a town in France called Cherbourg and then to a town in Ireland called Queenstown before it headed to its 5-day journey across the Atlantic Ocean where its destination was New York. On April 14, and as the Sun was going down, the temperature was quickly falling to the 30°F range. The Titanic also got messages regarding nearby icebergs, despite receiving this message, Capt. Smith still orders for the Titanic to sail at full steam and plotted a new course. The weather report at the time also said that it was a New Moon night and the sea will be calm, making it next to impossible to detect nearby icebergs. Now, there's a lot of speculation about that bit of information I just typed out. There's also reports that the Titanic never received the warning about nearby icebergs. Timeline of Disaster 11:45 PM (Titanic Time) One of the crew's lookout men Fredrick Fleet saw an incoming iceberg, he rang the bell (hard) several times and then used the ship's phone to call the bridge and in a frantic tone of voice "ICEBERG DEAD AHEAD."''The bridge heeded to Fleet's warning and slowed down the ship and tried to move away from the iceberg. Unfortunately, Fleet's warning came too late. The Titanic didn't crash into the iceberg, but the right side of its hull scraped along the iceberg, though not punching any holes, but left dents and severing many of the ship's rivets, and pieces of the iceberg also falling onto the upper deck of the ship. The passengers didn't feel the collision and went on like it was nothing (some weren't even aware that the ship scraped an iceberg since most were sleeping at this time). Due to numerous rivets in the ship's hull being completely severed, this allowed seawater to come in and fill up the watertight compartments. 11:50 PM The crew at these compartments phoned Capt. Smith to come down to asses the damage along with ''Thomas Andrews (the architect of the Titanic). They were told that too many of the ship's "watertight" compartments are already breached and flooding, this means that the Titanic is doing what it wasn't supposed to do: it was sinking. Midnight (12:00 AM) Capt. Smith and the crew of the Titanic scramble to get the passengers to safety and telegraph nearby ships of the incident. Smith even gave the order for the passengers to begin boarding the lifeboats. The passengers on board began to board the lifeboats, though confusion overwhelmed the passengers had no idea about what is going on. The traditional protocol at sea was "Women & Children First" ''and then men if they were there. The crew even shot off emergency distress rockets to help other ships that may be nearby to locate the sinking Titanic. 1:00 AM The Titanic's hull was about to disappear into the Ocean and the number of lifeboats was beginning to run out. Another problem is that the lower class cabins were now beginning to fill up with seawater. With lifeboats running out, some gave up their positions to more vulnerable passengers, some even accepted their fate and decided to stay on the ship. 2:05 AM The ship's last lifeboat was dispatched, but over 1,000 people were still on the ship which is at this time at a steep height, some even slipped off the ship and into the bone-chilling Atlantic Ocean. A few minutes later, Capt. Smith announced ''"Every man for himself." Minutes after that, the entire front side of the Titanic broke off under the weight of the water and descended nearly 10,000 feet to the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean. Within minutes after that, the unsupported stern than became level and quickly filled up with water and that too descended into the Ocean. The RMS Titanic, the supposedly "unsinkable ship" has sunk. After the Titanic sank, the lifeboats than tried to search for potential survivors, but all of the lifeboats can only find around 5. It wouldn't be until around 4 AM when another ship the USS Carpathia (who saw the distress rockets) came to pick up the stranded passengers and headed to New York. In the aftermath, only 700 people would survive, but 1500 people would lose their lives. Problems The Sinking of the Titanic is something that perplex people and experts alike, even to this day. How did an "unsinkable ship" sink, why did 1500 people die in this particular disaster? Well, in the decades of searching for answers and clues, experts and even special Oceanographers have detected numerous errors that lead to the Titanic disaster and 1500 deaths. Naval Practices The standard naval practices that Capt. Smith used was one of the contributors to the Titanic Disaster. Even after getting the warning of icebergs, Smith still wanted to stay on schedule to the ship's destination in New York. There was also a small and easily overlooked mistake when it came with seeing that iceberg that the Titanic scraped along and caused it to sink. Another Titanic Crewman Henry Blair was replaced right before the Titanic's voyage and forgotten to hand over the key to the compartment to the Crow's Nest Binoculars. So, Fleet was forced to use his own eyes to see incoming icebergs and was the reason why it was too late for the Titanic to steer away. Not enough lifeboats The Titanic also didn't have enough lifeboats to carry all of its passengers, and this was done so there can be more space on the upper deck of the ship. At the time, and with the belief that early 20th century ships couldn't sink, didn't think it was important to have a lot of lifeboats, and it was also standard practice for lifeboats to transfer the passengers to other ships nearby and not to keep all of the passengers on the ship afloat. Weather The biggest contributor to the 1500 people dying from the Titanic disaster was the weather. The Titanic sinking occurred at night when it was cold (in the low to mid 30°F range) and those who fell into the Atlantic Ocean (which was even colder at 28°F) most of the people died waiting to be rescued by other lifeboats from hypothermia (a potentially fatal condition where your body temperature drops 7-10°F below your average body temperature of 98.6°F), and it didn't help matters that it was (as said before) a "cold night" that night. Though some survivors of the rich class had coats and jackets, the poor class had little to no means to fight off the fatal condition. Poor Communication Poor Communication is what also led to the disaster. Another ship (the USS Californian) was closer to the Titanic when it was sinking than the Carpathia was. Unlike the Titanic, it stopped at the field of icebergs and decided to wait until the next morning before they headed back on their voyage. So, the crewman of the Californian decided to shut off the telegraph and went to sleep around 20 minutes before the Titanic struck the iceberg. The Crewmen also saw the Titanic's distress rockets but mistaken it for fireworks. Ever since the Titanic disaster, new Maritime Laws were put in place to make sure a maritime disaster of this particular scale would never happen again. Ships are required to have enough lifeboats to make sure everybody can evacuate a sinking ship. Communications are to be open at all times just in case another ship was sinking and to slow a ship down then there will be potentially dangerous things (such as icebergs) around ships. Well, that is it for this page. Don't forget to check out my Games and Movies wikis as well. Until next time, this is JohnnyOTGS signing out.